Does anyone know of any Dynamo proficiency certifications in the industry? I recently got my Certified Professional Badge and would like to compliment that on my resume with a Dynamo cert as well. thanks!
I did the Archistar advanced course.
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If you do any, do them for the quality of what you learn vs having a certificate. I wouldn’t expect many recruiters to take notice of Dynamo certs, maybe Python/C/development based ones. Currently most firms just assume BIM professionals have some degree of Dynamo experience if they use Revit I think.
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Instead of finding Dynamo certs, I think create your own Dynamo package will improve your resume. You can share the Github link or your package statistics in the resume. I believe that it will prove.
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That is brilliant advice, nice one!
Can second that having a package helps raise my personal brand and land clients. Keeping a copy on git makes it easily accessible also. I’ve occasionally JV’d at my current firm with other architects who sometimes mention packages too, and it’d be a door opener if you ever applied to a BIM team or manager who use your package or can review it.
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Another thing you could do is publish write-ups on computational workflows on your blog or the Dynamo blog. I recently posted on the Dynamo blog and got quite a lot of attention. It would help if the workflows you write about were used on built projects.
I recommend the Archistar course, though.
Good luck.
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unfortunately I dont think that is generally the case in Denver at the local mid-size firms. It is true for the larger firms. I am currently working through a python certification from google some other content to get better at writing python scripts as well. Where I currently work my architects generally view dynamo with suspicion at best.
I will check them out thanks!
Was going to sit this one out, but I’ll weigh in as I’ve got a unique perspective having dealt with a LOT of firms big and small.
I have seen a few schools of thought on this.
The first is that Dynamo is a feature of Revit. Therefore if you are a Revit expert they would expect you to understand the basics of Dynamo, and be able to make minor edits to a graph, just as they would expect you to be able to make minor edits to a family. However they should not expect you to be able to build a parametric fluted column family, just as they should not expect you to be able to build a complete workflow for generative design driven space planning. At that point you’re into specialties.
The next school of thought is that all Dynamo is a specialty. If Dynamo is needed they reach out to the specialist, who does all of the work. Most (99%) users don’t utilize it in any way, and if something needs to happen at scale the ask the Dynamo guy or just do it as they have done it before.
The final mindset is a hybrid approach, with ratios like 10/20/70 floating around, where 10% of all Revit users could qualify as specialists if given the chance, 20% can edit at an elevated level, and 70% can utilize Dynamo Player and get help from the other 30%.
Of these three schools the most successful with Dynamo (not necessarily with practice/design/business/whatever) is the group where everyone can use it, but admittedly that isn’t feasible for everyone yet any more then it was feasible to have the entire office a Revit expert in 2005 - it’s a new tool and those take time to reach saturation. THe least effective and most likely to fail (see: our Dynamo guy left and we can’t use any of this stuff anymore) is the ‘one expert’ path; it’s just too much of a bottle neck. As such I recommend the 10/20/70 ratio; a lot of firms have had good success with it, if someone leaves there is someone else who can step up, and eventually the ratios just climb even further as the 20% wants to learn how to author and the 70% is taught how to make the one time change for their projects.
As far as a certification? No, there isn’t one I am aware of. Generally speaking I disagree with the concept of certification in any single tool.
For candidates I recommend they focus on the broader industry concepts instead as those will take you further in the field. Would you really want to work at a place which sets the decision on if you should be hired or not which order which you added the shared parameters to the file?
For certification authors a word of caution: Remember that whatever standard you might test for in Dynamo will likely be invalidated in a few years due to the pace of change, and whatever you test for shoudl cover the full range of applications and integrations. The space is changing too fast to have a single set value with more, better, and faster changes to come soon (see the changes in UI in 2.13 as an example). A broader computational evaluation would be more useful (ie; cover data types, lists/arrays, class inheritance, etc.) as both a teaching tool (a key part as Gavin pointed out) and as something employers can count on.
For interviewers instead of looking to certifications I always recommend that instead you ask the candidate to tell you how they have implemented a feature or overcome a large scale obstacle in a project using Revit. This will lead to a meaningful conversation and some threads you can pull on. I have found this leads to more more capable and functional users in the end.
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Thanks @jacob.small, I appreciate your perspective on this. I generally just send a family I have built and a graph that II authored with a resume when I am applying for jobs, and that is mostly sufficient to show what can do. Some of the places I apply though frankly dont have the in-house capacity to work with Dynamo.